Students' Scores On College Tests Remain Stable

For the second straight year, the scores of high-school seniors
taking the two major college-admissions tests have shown little
statistical variation from the previous year.

But testing officials last week saw encouraging signs in the rising
number of students taking the exams and in the continuing gains of
minority students.

Donald H. Stewart, president of the College Board, which administers
the Scholastic Aptitude Test, said the larger pool of test-takers was
significant in assessing the results because "greater numbers of
test-takers usually mean lower averages."

He added that the increasing numbers taking the exams, particularly
among minorities, "means that a great many more students are actually
considering going to college."

Another encouraging sign in the data was that the sat scores of
prospective teachers reached a record high.

In releasing their annual testing data last week, officials of both
the College Board and the American College Testing program attributed
the higher minority scores in part to the increasing number of minority
students taking strengthened core curricula.

The average score on the mathematics portion of the sat rose by a
point, to 476 out of a possible 800. But scores on the verbal section
of the test fell by a point, to 430 out of 800.

The average composite score on the act fell by a tenth of a
point--to 18.7 on a scale of 1 to 35--continuing a pattern of stability
evident since the mid-1970's, program officials said.

Act scores for black, Hispanic, American Indian, and Asian American
students rose for the third straight year. Black students' scores on
the sat have risen by more than 20 percent since 1977, more than those
of any other ethnic group, according to Mr. Stewart.

Both testing organizations also reported that the number of
test-takers indicating they planned to major in education increased,
and that their average scores, while lower than the national average,
rose last year.

These trends are probably related to efforts by the states to
increase the status and salaries of teachers, said Robert G. Cameron,
executive director of research and development for the College
Board.

'Holding Ground'

The act primarily serves students in the Midwest and the South,
where many public colleges and universities require it for admission.
Unlike the sat, the act measures student performance in natural science
and social studies, as well as in English and math.

The sat, developed by the Educational Testing Service, is used
primarily in the Northeast and on the West coast, and is favored by
many private higher-education institutions as an admissions
standard.

During the past year, however, a number of private institutions,
such as Middlebury College, have dropped their use of the sat in
admission decisions.

The test scores have also been used by some education
observers--inappropriately according to critics--as a measure of the
health of the education system. In a statement last week, U.S.
Secretary of Education William J. Bennett said the results suggest that
the school-reform movement may have stalled.

"Holding ground is better than losing ground, but we still see an
insufficient payoff for what we've invested in education," Mr. Bennett
said. "We need better results."

But Mr. Bennett called the rise in the number of students taking the
exams "good news."

A total of 1,080,426 seniors took the sat last year, 80,000 more
than the previous year; 777,444 seniors took the act, an increase of
nearly 48,000.

The rise of nearly 8 percent in the number of sat-takers was
substantially higher than expected, said Mr. Cameron of the College
Board, since the number of 17-year-olds rose by only about 2 percent
last year.

He added that the increase in the number of minority test-takers was
a reversal of past trends, perhaps indicating that more black students
would attend college this fall.

"They have been declining slightly in numbers and proportion," Mr.
Cameron said. "This may indicate a turnaround in minority
enrollment."

Minority Achievement

The minority students who took the tests last year also scored
better than those in past years, although their average scores still
trailed national averages, Mr. Cameron said. The average verbal sat
score for black students rose to 351--up from 342 in 1985, the last
year for which figures are available. The average math score rose one
point, to 377.

On the act, black students' composite scores rose from 13 in 1986 to
13.4, while scores for Mexican-Americans rose from 15.2 to 15.4, and
those for Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics rose from 16.5 to 16.9.

These increases are related, said Samuel D. Cargile, director of the
act's office of minority education, to the fact that more minority
students are taking "core curricula" that include four years of English
and three years each of math, science, and social studies.

The act found that students who had taken such a core curriculum
scored, on average, nearly four points higher than students who had
taken less than the core, Mr. Cargile noted.

"Over the past several years, the proportion of act-tested students
from minority groups taking a core high-school curriculum has increased
noticeably," he said.

"It is likely that these increased enrollments in core curricula,
along with such other factors as students' motivation and the recent
emphasis on academic development by the schools, are associated with
the increase in average act composite scores for minority students," he
added.

Similarly, the College Board, which for the first time surveyed the
academic background of test-takers last year, found that those who had
taken more advanced courses in English, math, and science tended to
score higher on the exam.

"There is no guarantee that the study of physics will increase one's
test scores," said Mr. Cameron. "But the relationship [between courses
taken and scores] tends to be linear and very strong."

That relationship also helps explain the fact that women's average
math score was 23 points below the national average, while men's was 24
points above the national average, he said. The student data revealed
that although more women than men took the sat, men outnumbered women
in advanced math classes, such as trigonometry and calculus.

Prospective Teachers

Both organizations also reported that education is now the fifth
most popular intended major among test-takers.

Among those who took the act, 8 percent said they planned to study
education in college, up from 7 percent a year ago. The average
composite score for these prospective teachers remained the same as the
previous year's, at 17.6.

The sat scores of prospective teachers, on the other hand, reached a
new high of 408 on the verbal section and 437 in math.

Some 6 percent of sat takers said they planned to study
education.

Other findings of the testing organizations included:

Average scores on the act's English, mathematics, and social-studies
assessments each fell by a tenth of a point over the past year, while
the average score on the natural-sciences portion of the test remained
the same. The average English score was 18.5; math, 17.2; social
studies, 17.5; and natural sciences, 21.4.

The number of students taking the College Board's achievement
tests--14 one-hour tests in specific subject areas--rose by 4 percent,
to 200,000, and the average scores increased by 4 points, to 544 out of
800. For only the second time, more women than men took achievement
tests, the board reported.

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